Tech/Computer advice from me

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Extreme said:
I don't like Google+. I gave it its fair shot, it just bored me. Everything about it. I find it amusing that Google likes to brag that it's number 2 behind Facebook with active users. Yeah, it would be a stat to brag about if it wasn't for the fact that Google merged its services, so every time you log on to gmail, googledocs, youtube, etc. you are counted as an active Google+ user. The stat is severely overinflated.

I use every service Google has except for Google+ and gmail, but every time I use one, they high five themselves. I don't know if they keep stats on average time spent on each, but I'd be willing to bet a graph would have facebook usage towering over Google+.

None of this Google+ stuff would bother me at all, except for the fact that a lot of people that do use Google+ have become as vocal and annoying about it as Apple fanboys.
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I wanted to download an app that was only available by signing up with Google +. So, I went through the whole process of coming up with a name, a password, and everything else that was needed, only to find out my tablet was NOT compatible with Google Play. Do you think I could find a way to cancel my Google + account!
 
In the "Vigilance is always worth the time" department there was an attempted hack on my FB page originating from Belarus about an hour ago. I reset to a much stronger pw and that should take care of it. I will give FB credit for not only denying the attempted false sign-in but in showing the location of the attempt.

Belarus is among the poorest of countries-meaning one of the only two socialist countries left in Europe, Moldava being the other-and likely has a number of bored and pissed-off IT folks with nothing else to do.
 
MikeSr619 said:
did that pop up on its own for you?
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Yeah, as soon as I tried to sign in FB popped a page open notifying me of the attempted access and showing a map locating it as originating in Belarus and immediately advised me to change passwords with confirmation and I gave one that should drive hackers nuts-even a brute force attack with a big dictionary will be hard pressed to get this one. :)

It's just one of the hazards out there.
 
Depends. Most of the nasty stuff is capable of infecting system restores, at least that's what I've seen.
 
Fear The Spear said:
To what extent does doing a System Restore act as a remedy for infections, malware, etc ?
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It doesn't!

If you have taken all the time needed to clean and disinfect your system without turning off system restore, your time has been wasted. As the nasty files will hang around in the restore files, as soon as you commit to a system restore, all that you are doing is restoring the nasty files to a state BEFORE you spent all that time cleaning your system.

When you do a clean-up, system restore MUST be turned OFF BEFORE you even start.

I was taught that system restore is used only for when a newly installed PROGRAM, one that the user has installed, goes belly-up and causes problems. You then use system restore to go back to a time prior to when that suspect program was installed.

However, now that I use UBUNTU, I hadn't realised system restore still existed!
 
As you all will soon learn, I'm pretty behind in tech knowledge and skills, so i apologize in advance if I ask questions that may seem ignorant. (I am many times!)

OK, I currently use the router provided to us via Windstream for our wifi needs. We use both a Roku unit and a Boxee unit plus a few other wireless devices throughout the house and believe that the signal strength is too weak to satisfy our wifi needs.

First, can we use a router that isnt provided by our ISP? Are there anyt risks to do so?

Second, what would you all suggest as good router options that could provide a stronger signal for multiple device use?

Thanks for any help you can lend this somewhat tech invalid!
 
Snydershrugged said:
First, can we use a router that isnt provided by our ISP? Are there anyt risks to do so?
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That depends entirely on whether or not they gave you a Modem/Router combo. If the modem is independent of the router then you can swap the router out at any time. There are some cases where that is not what is going on, but you would have to have some technical ability for those setups (or they would have had to set it up for you in a backasswards way)

If you're not sure, just take a look at your set up. There should be a wire coming out of the wall (either COAX or a phone cable) into a box (your modem) then there should be a network cable running from that box to your router. If you don't have two boxes then odds are it's a combo.

If you do have a combo you can still add your own router but you'll have to disable the routing parts of the modem. It's not hard but you'll probably be better off contacting your ISP and telling them you want to disable it and having them help you. They should do it free of charge.

Snydershrugged said:
Second, what would you all suggest as good router options that could provide a stronger signal for multiple device use?
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I have a really hard time recommending Linksys. They used to be a good home brand until Cisco bought them, then they went to ****. Cisco has since sold Linksys (in the last 6 months if I remember correctly) but I think it'll be years before they're back to being a worth-wild product. There are culture issues there that came from Cisco taking over and that stuff takes a while to get weeded out.

People keep saying nice things about Buffalo routers. I've never used one, but when I finally decide to toss my Linksys E1000 I'll be going with a Buffalo.

You can go with a staple like Netgear or DLink but they're barely better than Linksys in my opinion.
 
Yeah, unfortunately there's no way I know of to tell which ones are infected and which ones aren't, so you kind of have to assume they're all infected.

System restore is good when a program goes haywire and you have to go back to the previous version, or something along those lines. It's not really ideal for reverting a virus/malware infection.
 
tshile said:
That depends entirely on whether or not they gave you a Modem/Router combo. If the modem is independent of the router then you can swap the router out at any time. There are some cases where that is not what is going on, but you would have to have some technical ability for those setups (or they would have had to set it up for you in a backasswards way)

If you're not sure, just take a look at your set up. There should be a wire coming out of the wall (either COAX or a phone cable) into a box (your modem) then there should be a network cable running from that box to your router. If you don't have two boxes then odds are it's a combo.

If you do have a combo you can still add your own router but you'll have to disable the routing parts of the modem. It's not hard but you'll probably be better off contacting your ISP and telling them you want to disable it and having them help you. They should do it free of charge.



I have a really hard time recommending Linksys. They used to be a good home brand until Cisco bought them, then they went to ****. Cisco has since sold Linksys (in the last 6 months if I remember correctly) but I think it'll be years before they're back to being a worth-wild product. There are culture issues there that came from Cisco taking over and that stuff takes a while to get weeded out.

People keep saying nice things about Buffalo routers. I've never used one, but when I finally decide to toss my Linksys E1000 I'll be going with a Buffalo.

You can go with a staple like Netgear or DLink but they're barely better than Linksys in my opinion.
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Thanks for the advice!! I'll check and see what I actually have tonight
 
Got a FB/computer question. Okay, for some friggin reason my messages will not show up on FB today. Every time I click the messages it goes to my inbox but today just a blank white screen appears. Anybody have a suggestion?
 
So, to help me understand this situation better, if scanning for infections and finding them and removing them, without first stopping or clearing your System Restores first, doesn't actually remove them - how does this happen : Up until now, I have not been stopping or clearing my System Restore first, before doing a scan, and if it finds infection(s) and I choose to remove them and it tells me it was successful, I will typically run an identical scan immediately again to make sure it's gone, and the 2nd scan always comes out clean. What's happening here, to cause the 2nd scan to become clean, if I left my System Restore "as is" ?
 
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I can't answer Win4us' facebook question, if someone else can.

Fear:
Think of system restores as just being files on your computer - little snapshots of your machine, saved to a single file.
The system restore files are hidden and virus scanners (at least most of them) don't scan those files. Viruses have perfected infecting system restore files, because otherwise we'd all just quickly do a system restore after getting an infection :)
So when you run your scanner, and it comes back clean, it's not scanning your system restore files.

Now those files just sit there, they do nothing. The OS adds to them as it sees fit. If you never do a restore, you'll never see any problems.

But the second you run a restore, you wind up reinstall the virus, and now you have an active problem again.

So the best bet, once infected, is to clean out all your system restores. This will prevent you from accidently having this problem in the future.

I believe you're running on windows XP? That's majority of your problem. Unfortunately windows xp was a buggy/vulnerable mess.
 
So, since scanners don't target System Restore files at all, let"s say i got an infection in my System Restore files, but no-where else on my PC. Then simply deleting all System Restore points will remove the infection, and a scan is not necessary - is that correct ?

And Yes, Windows XP.

Sorry I'm high maintenance.
 
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